You mean if he pulls a Dubya? I really don’t think they’d have a leg to stand on. You might hear some random assorted whining, but there would be no concerted effort to nullify the results, and the media would ignore the whining.

Not sure this is any guide, but chunky bobo already wrote a post about this topic that I would summarize as follows: It was fine when it happened with Bush, but it will not be ok if it happens with Obama

@Spaghetti Lee: Oh, but you may be forgetting some of the Florida bullshit from 2000. The state legislature in a state Obama won could decide to play games with the electors it sent to cast votes — in essence, have electors vote for Romney in defiance of the state’s popular vote results. They shouldn’t be able to pull that, but, if they did, would you trust the Supreme Court to stop them?

How long until Republicans completely lose their shit and start trying to exercise “2nd Amendment Remedies” on another national politician the presumed liberals in the parking lot of the local Whole Foods store?

I dunno about you, but my worries are a little closer to home. I don’t have a personal secret service detail keeping me and my family safe. Just saying.

If this happens to Obama it would be the first time it happened. George Bush didn’t win Florida. His brother and his brother’s cronies stole it for him. Al Gore won both the electoral college and the popular vote. He just had the terrible misfortune of not having a brother who was a governor or a SCOTUS stacked with judges his father and his father’s old boss had appointed to make sure that he won. Anyway, Obama is going to win at least 8 out of the 11 swing states so he won’t lose the popular vote.

I don’t even want to entertain this shit. Not even for “fun”. I don’t want to think about the first black POTUS losing the popular vote because racist crackers in the South going more Republican then ever in a vain attempt to put the white back in the White House. Not even wingnut tears is worth that shit.

Freakout? How about armed rebellion? I think we would see militia movements form and threaten violence. Don’t know how far they will go.

Did anyone else watch CNN after the debate (our cable system refuses to carry MSNBC)? They were tracking undecided voter’s reactions during the debate and found that the group’s lowest approval of him during the debate was when he told Romney that his apology tour accusation was “the biggest whopper” of the campaign. That surprised me. I wonder if they were upset that an uppity black man called a rich white man a liar? Because that comment was one of the high points for me!

How long until Republicans completely lose their shit and start trying to exercise “2nd Amendment Remedies” on another national politician the presumed liberals in the parking lot of the local Whole Foods store?

Why would any liberal shop at an overpriced place whose CEO is an anti-union libertarian?

@SFAW: right, that’s what I meant — something like Virginia going for Obama, then the state lege sending a slate of Romney electors anyway. I wouldn’t trust the Supreme Court to nix the rogue electors, because IIRC there’s language in the Constitution about state leges being able to send electors by a process of their own choosing.

Um, no, I don’t think that’s how it works. The state political _party_ leadership of whatever candidate receives the most votes in a state selects the electors, not the state legislature.

That’s why fantasies about “flipping” electors are (as they were in 2000) purely fantasies. There have been some recorded cases of “faithless electors” in the past, but because it’s happened, party leaders these days are fanatically careful about who they pick to be electors.

Republican party leaders only pick the most die-hard of Republican electors. Democratic party leaders only pick the most die-hard of Democratic electors.

Well, the wingnuts can get onto the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact whenever they damn well please. So far its only passed in blue states, and NC is the only purple one where it’s pending.
__
No constitutional amendment needed. 132 EVs are currently on board, and another 140 are needed. If the GOP is pissed about the outcome, tell Texas to get off the fucking pot.

In some ways, this would make states politically irrelevant. Talk about “be careful about what you ask for.”

I think what me may see in that case, is defiance at the red state government level for a period of time. Though from the very weird absolute certainty in greater wingnuttia that they have already won without question, I expect a cheeto dust storm reducing visibility to near zero.

They have already created a future world on the other side of no tomorrow, where Obambi is exiled to Hawaii, and wingnuts rule the realm. Of course, this is in defiance of some long odds of winning the EC, not to mention current polling.

It’s not even close in the key battleground states, as the armies of Obots outnumber the Rbots by about 3 to 1. My impression is the entire right wing has built a field of dreams in their heads that they cannot lose, because that would mean the end of their world. And that some last minute savior, like say the captains of industry pull off a scam to steal the election, some way, some how. It is entirely faith based of the concept of pure grade ‘exceptionalism’ fueling the wingnut mother ship, and will bring victory. And the little dears are all holding hands and holding their breathes to create a kind of reality burst from shear determination.

In case of an EC victory for Obama, and a pop vote win for Mitt, I expect the Alabama National Guard will declare war for one weekend a month.

Yes. There will be gunplay, some armed marches on Washington (there’s a LOT of people on the far right who want to see this happen), probably some National Guard will have to be called up and certainly at least a few people will die.

There isn’t much they can do. But think about it for a second. According to the fringe elements on foxNews, Obama is a Muslim, socialistic terrorist symnpathizer. And I have lost count as to how many times foxNews is claiming that President Obama is our worst President ever.

In spite of that, it looks like at best they will barely beat President Obama. At best.

Let’s say Obama wins the electoral college and loses the popular vote. How big will the wingnut freakout be? Will they try to block Obama from staying in office somehow?

More states run by Republicans passing increasingly convoluted and arcane Voter ID laws that require one to walk sunward circles at twilight while reciting the Constitution in Latin to prove that you are properly worthy to cast a ballot.

I wonder if they were upset that an uppity black man called a rich white man a liar? Because that comment was one of the high points for me!

I think that is no doubt part of their reaction, but it was more because they have heard so much about the Apology Tour that they believe it is a fact. They reacted negatively because they believed the president was the one who was lying.

You might have seen a similar reaction if Obama had said that there were no WMDs in Iraq.

What is it that makes you think their constant gibbering frothing manic babbling paranoid histrionic freakout would ever stop under any circumstance whatsoever up to and including if Obama wins even 73% of the vote?

I’m not sure efforts to get rid of the electoral college would work to the long-term benefit of the Republican party.

Because of the way the swing states shake out, it’s probably hurting them in this cycle. But in most cycles, keeping the EC in place helps the Republican candidate, because the sparsely-populated states in the west and plains get a lot more leverage in the EC then they should have purely on the basis of population. And those states have been pretty reliably Republican in recent cycles.

If more people voted for that breathing turd of a robot running for the Republicans, there are bigger issues than whether or not Obama is returned to the White House on the basis of the Electoral College.

@ranchandsyrup:
Yup. Suddenly, little states will be treated like little states in the general. Personally, after hearing years of my brother’s tales of living in Cow Hampshire, I’m relatively relieved to not be carpet bombed with election stuff continually two years of every four, but California certainly doesn’t weigh as heavily as it ought to, nationally. We’re an electoral ATM.

I expect there would be a lot of noise but nothing would come of it. There was a lot of noise during the 2000 inauguration too, with massive protests in DC that the media completely ignored and wrote out of history.

As for the electoral college. Don’t expect smart Republicans to ever push for its repeal. Over the long term they benefit more from it than Democrats do. All those small rural red states like Wyoming get outsize representation compared to populous states like CA and NY. This year is likely to be an anomaly due to racial issues in the south. When future elections revert to form the electoral college will be back favoring Republicans.

You will hear a lot of howling – much louder but not unlike the howling they did when Clinton won by a plurality and not a majority. The decent, upstanding members of the beltway Kool Kids Klub will question the legitimacy of the whole term and state that the ONLY choice is for Obama to move to the right and “compromise” with the GOP.

I’d almost rather see Rmoney win as the fallout from the disaster that will follow such an event will be blamed on Obama and the Dems

@FlipYrWhig: Yeah, states are freely empowered to choose their electors however they want. But the GOP would be unwise to uncork that particular bottle. The 14th amendment would almost certainly kick in as it would be likely interpreted as an illegal act to ignore voters rights, and that would strip the state of their Representatives to the House.

Whoever did that would need to be very committed to the idea. If Virginia did it, they’d toss 3 Democrats and 8 Republicans (assuming every seat is held by the party), and toss Eric Cantor out of government. Depending on how much the Dems might close the gap in the House, that could throw the House to the Dems.

And that’s not even getting into the very epic backlash from voters against the party doing any such thing.

BTW, I now truly believe that an Obama victory will cause some wingnuts to lose their minds. And the results may be very unpleasant.

I finally saw an Angry White Male Mittvoter in the wild today. Upclose and personal.

The guy who operates a food truck absolutely loves Obama and was talking about his debate performance. A customer said “Oh, you should never talk politics” but got increasingly upset as the food truck guy and I joked about the thrashing Obama gave Romney. To sum up the customer’s responses:

He kept going on about how he was paying for his own health insurance, as though the Health Care Act is just a giveaway to freeloaders.

He absolutely believes that Romney held his own during the debate. He also believes that Obama is stupid and a liar.

The guy claims to have two sons in Afghanistan (and we all wished his sons well and that they come home safely). But when we talked about the folly that got us into Iraq and Afghanistan, he angrily retorted “why do you have to blame Bush for everything.” He thinks that Obama is lying about the 2014 pullout and thinks that we will be there for 20 or more years. When we noted that Romney at one point appeared to want to escalate US involvement in the region, but Obama does not, the guy shot back, “Well, Romney doesn’t lie about it!” This seemed to be more important to him than getting his sons back safely. I do not understand this. A partisan anger that would cause you to support someone who might increase the risks to your children’s safety.

In many ways, this is a man who is clearly voting against his own interests. No matter what you say to him, or show him, he believes that there is an Unqualified Negro in the White House. No matter what you say to him or show him, he believes that Romney is better for the country.

And he will happily vote for Romney, even if Mittens promises to keep digging a hole in Afghanistan, even if it puts the man’s sons at risk.

I wish this were made up stuff. It’s not.

And I am convinced that some hardcore few of these people will try to hurt themselves, and others, in order to find some kind of vindication for their fear and hatred.

@Political Observer: Apparently losing 4 presidential elections since then doesn’t count. And you’ll have to tell me what was remotely extraordinary about 1996, since you’re SOOOOOO knowledgeable about American history. Fuckhead.

I expect there would be a lot of noise but nothing would come of it. There was a lot of noise during the 2000 inauguration too, with massive protests in DC that the media completely ignored and wrote out of history.

You are aware that we’re about halfway to having that EC reform implemented by the states? And that initiative started in direct response to the 2000 election?

I think this would be one of the best possible outcomes. I have a feeling Republicans would jump all over the National Popular Vote amendment, cutting off their nose to spite their face and giving a massive advantage to urban liberals, as henceforth Pres candidates would spend almost no time in the midwest/low-density south.

@Ash Can: Here’s how vinegar based feminine cleansing product Mark Halperin describes it: “The Gang of 500 refers to political insiders and journalists who influence the daily media narrative in US politics. About ten percent of the Gang of 500 is made up of political journalists. The term was coined by Mark Halperin as “campaign consultants, strategists, pollsters, pundits, and journalists who make up the modern-day political establishment”. They are “the 500 people whose decisions matter to the political news and campaign narrative we get from the major media”

Romney now LEADS Obambi like likeability and favorability. He’s clinched North Carolina, Florida, and Virginia. He’s coming on strong in Colorado. He’s about to surge in Nevada.
The Romney Bandwagon is picking up more and more steam as we speak. Once again: in the end, we ALWAYS win. Republicans since 1968 are unbeatable in Presidential politics except in extraordinary circumstances.

Dick Morris, is that you?

By the way, you remind me of my neighbor. You sound just like him. He watches FoxNews every night. And just like you, his reality is completely dwarfed by the American Pravda, ie FoxNews.

What is it that makes you think their constant gibbering frothing manic babbling paranoid histrionic freakout would ever stop under any circumstance whatsoever up to and including if Obama wins even 73% of the vote?

What matters isn’t the wingnut freakout. They freaked out over FDR being re-elected in 1936 and 1940 and 1944 for all the good it did them.

What matters is how the largely apolitical half of the voting age population perceives and reacts to the wingnut freakout. What the wingnuts are hoping for is to elicit a if there’s smoke there must be fire reaction from the apoliticals. Up to a certain point shouting louder and more urgently creates the impression of more smoke and thus increases the chances that somebody gullible will assume there must be some fires that need putting out, but tactically it is easy for the wingnuts to overplay their hand and end up being dismissed as crackpots.

The difference between a close election and a popular landslide lies in where this social distortion tipping point will be located with the apolitical half of the population. In the case of a really close election, the apoliticals may take the attitude of “just give them what they want to make them shut up so we don’t have to listen to it anymore”. I think a lot of the reaction to the 2000 election amongst apoliticals played out along these lines.

Again, I don’t think state governments have that kind of ability to interfere in the process.

States can determine _how_ electors are selected by each party, but those rules are already on the books. Each state party prepares a slate of electors for that state.

But once the results of the state popular election are certified, it’s out of the state government’s hands. They’re obligated to award their electoral votes, winner-take-all (except Maine & Nebraska) to whoever won the statewide popular vote. If I’m reading the process summary correctly, there’s no opportunity for state legislatures to interfere in the selection of electors–and for good reason, that’d open up a _lot_ of cans of worms that nobody wants opened.

The Republicans actually have SEVERAL ATTORNEY GROUPS working on this pre-emptively, just in case the vote is close in multiple battleground states.

Forget about Obama winning the Electoral College and Rmoney winning the popular vote. If ANY state comes close (say within 10,000 votes either way), the Republicans intend to litigate the election to death.

They INTEND to have the USSC once again install an emperor. Don’t kid yourselves.

In many ways, this is a man who is clearly voting against his own interests.

Encapsulated, distilled, etc., this is the brilliance of the Republican Party–their continued ability to harvest a shockingly large number of rubes who gladly vote counter to their self-interests. They’ve packaged class warfare and sell it in digestible chunks 24/7 through their media. They’re never not campaigning.

@Humanities Grad: Actually, it IS how it works — here’s an article from the WaPo in 2000 in which the Florida state government talks about acting before the Supreme Court rules: Fla. legislature could pick slate of electors. Something like that happened in the Tilden/Hayes race in 1876. I’d cite Wikipedia but I think that would take me over the limit for links in a post. It would be ballsy as hell, but I wouldn’t put it past the imagination of Republican dastards.

@Political Observer: Goddamn but you are one stupid motherfucker.
The electors are always party hacks. They will not change their vote for any reason at all.

@Political Observer: Holy Christ, you’re even dumber than I thought. Are you sure someone isn’t telling you when to breathe? You think Rmoney will win with 310 EV?
Stop bogarting the good shit. Pass it around.

Let’s say Obama wins the electoral college and loses the popular vote. How big will the wingnut freakout be? Will they try to block Obama from staying in office somehow?

I think Roger Ailes has hired Eugène Delacroix & The Rendon Group for just such a contingency. This is just the gambit that Ahmed Chalabi has been waiting for… which explains why he’s been wearing an Rmoney halloween mask over the last several years and his controversial conversion to Mormonism. Do we really think that the Reverend Moon would be deep sixed so easy? Act II is still to come. You can set your Mayan calendar by it.

@Brachiator: Paraphrased from a comment I left on another thread, but food truck guy — his nonsensical, self-contradictory passion — seems to confirm my suspicion.

I believe that, in the current era, there’s only one truly rational reason to support the Republican: because you think he will make you more money. Maybe you’re already very wealthy, and this supposition is callous, but correct. Or maybe you’re not wealthy, but Republicans are historically better for your chosen field (military contracts, etc.). Or maybe you’re incorrect, but still rational, such as the many people who seem to think that Republicans are generically better for the economy, or small business.

Every other reason to support the Republican is some form of psychodrama. Tribalism, self-hatred, existential anxiety, religious brainwashing, whatever. Powerful driving forces, but not rational. So, you poke them, and a bunch of emo blathering comes out.

The most important fact is that President Obama is our president now. It will be very difficult to move him out of office unless there is a huge push from across the country. I am sure he and his advisers have gamed this out, and they are not about to give up easily, as Gore did.

If Obama wins the Electoral College but loses the popular vote, Republicans will quietly respect the rules the Constitution prescribed and decide to work in a bipartisan fashion to raise revenues and cut spending. Congress will have daily sessions of singing Kumbaya.

@Political Observer: dude, I’m going to point it out one more time for you… Romney hasn’t clinched any of those states, they are very tight races, all within the margin of error. I do hope we see you after the election, because I can’t wait to hear the explanation for Obama’s win.

I’m still not convinced. Or rather, I think you and I are talking about two slightly different scenarios, and I hadn’t realized it. This is from that article:

Federal law leaves the question of determining the methods for selecting members of the electoral college up to individual states. It provides that if the election fails to produce a slate of electors, “the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of such state may direct.”

So yes, theoretically a state legislature could do that if the popular vote in a particular state was disputed. But I’m talking about cases where the popular vote _does_ determine a clear victor–and in that case the election would not “fail to produce a slate of electors.”

There is probably a scenario in which Obama could lose the nationwide popular vote, but win the popular vote in sufficient states to give him 270 electoral votes. And so long as the vote results in those states are not called into question, I still think the state legislatures are powerless to do anything about it. Because the elections in those states _would_ have produced slates of electors.

I believe that, in the current era, there’s only one truly rational reason to support the Republican: because you think he will make you more money. Maybe you’re already very wealthy, and this supposition is callous, but correct. Or maybe you’re not wealthy, but Republicans are historically better for your chosen field (military contracts, etc.). Or maybe you’re incorrect, but still rational, such as the many people who seem to think that Republicans are generically better for the economy, or small business.

The Republicans are very rarely good for the working man, and the myth that they are is fairly recent.

Every other reason to support the Republican is some form of psychodrama. Tribalism, self-hatred, existential anxiety, religious brainwashing, whatever. Powerful driving forces, but not rational. So, you poke them, and a bunch of emo blathering comes out.

It’s not really emo blathering. And again, what astounds me is the degree to which this man, the customer, not the food truck guy, was willing to dismiss the health and safety of his sons, not to support Romney, but to hate Obama.

Americans, even stupid Americans, often have some nubbin of common sense that deflects self-hatred. It is sad to see so many, the fabled 27 percent, succumb to this tribal insanity.

@Political Observer: I think your fantasy would have been more believable had you exchanged WI or PA for NV. There’s simply no way that Romney wins NV this time. I’ve worked that state on three elections and it’s just getting bluer and bluer and on the easy side for Dem GOTV. Harry Reid sailing through against the red tide of 2010 should tell you something.

I think you’ll see at least one assassination attempt between election day and inauguration and probably another in the first six months after that. And I’m talking bona fide ‘man with a rifle’ things. Everybody remembers the guys who were arrested in Colorado during the 2008 campaign that had multiple firearms in the hotel room.
I think you might actually see somebody decide to act. The NRA has been saying for four years that a second Obama administration will see the seizure of their penis compensators, and we’ve all seen the Chuck Norris crap with 1000 years of darkness and so on.
These people, only slightly more intelligent than Political Observer, will do something. From their perspective, they won’t have a choice.

@Brachiator: Random Dude just knows, deep down, that Democrats want to use his money to give free stuff and favors to moochers, especially the lazy ones, you know, Those People. Nothing else is more true to him than that. Then he fills in the details election by election. All Republicans think this way, except some of the tycoons, who just want low taxes because they’re greedy and selfish. And then there’s a handful of anti-sex weirdos. That’s it. That’s the whole party. 40+% of America. Not a pretty picture.

Rmoney has a 0.7 advantage in FL, according to Nate Silver’s average. Florida is gonna go to Obama, the GOTV is very strong here and the Nelson ad war against Connie Mack in the Senate race is bringing Mittens numbers down by proxy.

It will be, as PO DougJ shows, a pivot to “America is a center right nation!” and an attempted impeach-a-thon for 4 yrs. Unless Soonergrunt is correct. I am thankful for every day something like he suggests doesn’t happen.

What exactly is “About to surge” anyway? Isn’t that what a normal person would call “Behind in the polls and showing no upward movement”? Because, shit, by that standard Mitt’s going to win Nevada, New York, and the entire west coast. VICTORY!

I can so easily envision PU furiously hitting F5 tomorrow, left hand only, as he waits for The Combover’s GAME CHANGR BITCHZ!!11!!!!! latest proof that Obama ate a healthy white baby in Zambia in 1985 at a Voudoun ceremony while raising a fist salute and chanting “Down with pink toes, down with honkies!”

Seriously though, I don’t know how this thing will shake out in two weeks, but I do know that overconfidence on either side is not a good idea. Well, it is a good idea for the Confederate Party, because it’ll make their depression that much more severe, so you go, PU!

@Humanities Grad: They can try a maneuver that’s like the “nuclear option” in the Senate to eliminate the filibuster: do something nakedly opportunistic, then make sure all the people who might be in a position to reverse it are all crooked too. How about this? “Sure, the vote totals you’ve seen for State look like Obama wins, but Republicans are alleging widespread voter fraud. While that works its way through the courts, we’d better go ahead and prepare a slate of electors. Oh, wow, the electors for State just happen to be Romney die-hards? Hadn’t noticed that.” Then, a few months later, after a bunch of nonsense about fraud approved by Republican judges, the disputed electors vote for Romney. “Well, now that the electoral college has officially voted, only a sore loser would want to re-litigate all of that, so, get over it, loser!”

1876 isn’t a good example because there was massive electoral fraud by both parties, so the lead of one candidate or the other could possibly be contested. But 2000 is a great example of how lower population density areas are favored in the existing system, so a party they supported could easily win in spite of clearly losing the popular vote (although – it seems that Florida also had some strings pulled to be fair).

The previous instances where that happened were 1824 and 1888. 1824 was complicated by being a four-way race, but the more libertarian-ish Jackson gained about 3.5% more in electoral votes than he did in the popular vote because he had a rural base, compared to the more centrist Adams who only gained a bit more than 1% translating from popular vote to elector counts. Still, since no one won an absolute majority in the EC, they went into the mad hatter route of having the House of Representatives elect the President.

1888 is hard to easily map to a liberal/conservative dichotomy, as the Democrats ran on essentially a free trade platform but in international solidarity with the UK. The Republicans in contrast were nationalistic in the backlash to that, but supported basic protectionism as a result. Regardless of how you classify them though – the Republican-leaning vote of rural New England, the rural Midwest, and the rural West counterbalanced more densely populated areas in the Mid-Atlantic that voted Democratic in the EC, even though they weren’t even in votes. Slim Republican majorities in a few key states (namely Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York) put the GOP over the top. As a result, Harrison was elected President with 47.8% of the popular vote but 58.1% of the electoral votes.

For the record – I’m not saying that Obama will lose (I think he’s going to win both popular and electoral vote majorities), but that if he does, he’d probably have to lose both.

@Cacti: Don’t be so pessimistic! I’m sure the GOP will give it another go in 4 years. Heck, they’ll probably get some brown-on-brown hate going on once Bobby Jindal needs to pump up his “tough on immigration” credentials.

@Cacti:
While I’d prefer they begin the long slog back to being a legitimate party instead of…I don’t believe they’re done manning the crazy train. Willard will be dismissed as “insufficiently conservative” and they’ll begin grooming the next batch, anew. Herr Ryan will receive public reacharounds for “nearly turning a losing campaign into a winner.”

Unfortunately, having his only reason for being on TV rejected by the voters will only enhance Paul Ryan’s status as a VSP. We will not be rid of him in my lifetime.

People said that about Sarah Palin, too. She’s not gone, but she’s faded pretty far. Ryan’s turn in the national spotlight has shown that he’s not that bright, and I’m not sure he’ll be able to keep up the act after he loses.

When Romney loses, the fratricidal knife fight for the future of the GOP will begin in earnest. 2012 is the last hurrah for the Southern Strategy/white resentment as a national electoral strategy.

From your mouth to the FSM’s ears, but unfortunately we’re forgetting something crucial about the FixedNoise/Appalachia/Plains/Mason-Dixon crowd here: they’re rubes, and so very profitable. Consistently profitable. As long as they keep believing that America is becoming Gehennom and the NiCLANG! in the formerly White House is proof, they can be ginned up to gum up the works.

The Worst Generation, i.e. the Baby Boomers, and their parents have to start dying off for anything to change. Then the kids who managed to move away and discover that non-whites are actual freakin’ Human Beings and that Gays are people too, etc., will become the center, and the center is now thoroughly occupied by the Democrats who are in fact–the REAL CONSERVATIVES–because the root of the word CONSERVATIVE is to CONSERVE, which includes our New Deal, our air, water and land, and our international reputation and prosperity.

What the Confederate Party has done as a multi-decade project is twist the meaning of Plutocrat Radical Royalist Theocratic Oligarchy to mean Conservative for their deluded followers. T’aint reality. It’s Semantic Black Magic.

@Redshift:
So long as he has his house seat, he ain’t going away. The quitta from Wasilla mishandled her status badly through sheer greed, not to mention adding Tawd and her grubby brood into the feeding frenzy. Ryan’s not that far below chair of Ways and Means (bog help us all).

@FlipYrWhig: And while that is happening, Mr. Steel-in-his-spine will be demonstrating that the laws which allow for the detention and summary disposal of enemies of the state do not apply only to scary brown people.

I’m sure that their final interrogations would provide fascinating food for further action.

When Jebby Bush and Glennnn Beck start posturing themselves to go after the “sane moderate conservatives”, you know we’re borked either way.

Has this in fact started happening? Ignoring these two fools as I do, I’d never know. The Confederate Party Ops are so perverse, they’d have total Race War Putsch mode going openly and in defiance of all laws both official and non- before they totally break down and admit the kind of defeat and allow the type of intervention we saw in the Democrats from say the post-Dukakis to pre-Clinton years.

I have a colleague who tries to play that he’s just pretending to be a winger for effect but is really a winger who listens to nutburgers talk radio all day and really likes Glenn Beck. He has been blathering on about how Beck’s gonna go more moderate.

Beck is pure opportunism. Jebby is fulfilling what he sees to be the GHWB and Senator Prescott Bush legacies that GWB demolished.

Well, no the electors don’t HAVE to vote in accordance with the vote in a state, no. But since in the scenario I’ve outlined the electors are all selected by party leaders in that state, it’s academic. No Democratic elector is going to cross party lines to make Romney president, just as no Republican elector was going to cast his vote for Gore in 2000.

Jeb Bush will never survive a primary. That’d require the Confederate Party faithful to closet and dilute their crazy enough to see things his way for several years, and nuh.gonna.happn. The GOP is now a religion, and zealotry is both required and rewarded. Too many brown people around makes them reliable votin’ folks rrrreallllll nervous.

Just saying that for a blog that has raised 75k for obama, it makes no sense to me for front pagers to say things like what you said and to title threads in the fashion DougJ did.

I did try to post about the title on the DougJ thread in question, but it would never come up with a comment box, and several commenters had expressed the same concerns — in multiple threads — and nothing was done.

I’ve met wingnut like that. Who feel personally violated whenever the owner of the store/restaurant/whatever starts talking liberal politics with one of their customers, and suddenly whip this rule out of thin air that “you should never talk politics.” Funny how the rule disappears as soon as the politics being discussed are on their side.

I do not understand this. A partisan anger that would cause you to support someone who might increase the risks to your children’s safety.

It’s tribalism. “My people good, your people bad, my argument whatever it needs to be to further that point.” With a base made up of racists, fundamentalists, xenophobes, homophobes and sexists, it doesn’t surprise me at all that the same basic logic is applied to politics.

And I am convinced that some hardcore few of these people will try to hurt themselves, and others, in order to find some kind of vindication for their fear and hatred.

Different people different talents. Sarah Palin was flash-in-the-pan her whole career. Paul Ryan is a successful Village con man. I’m not talking about his chances running for office. I’m talking about his almost constant presence on the talk shows.

Newt Gingrich says hello. He was revealed to be a mean-spirited fraud what…15 years ago, and dumped by his own party? After a short hike on the Appalachian Trail of political disgrace, he wormed his way back into the dicussion and even won a few primaries this year.

Paul Ryan, despite being a lying sack of shit granny-starver, can pretend to be more affable than Newt could ever dream of. And he won’t be kicked to the curb in disgrace – he’ll be the VP of a narrowly losing ticket, and he’s already been laying the groundwork for the post-hoc “if they’d just let me be the awesomest conservative wonk evah! we would have won easily” backstab. That fucker isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Unless, perhaps, he loses his House seat. Which is unlikely.

@gorram: Obviously unlikely, but is it not mathematically possible for Romney to sufficiently run up the score in Texas, Georgia, Alabama, and so on to win the popular vote while not coming close in the electoral college?

In some ways, this would make states politically irrelevant. Talk about “be careful about what you ask for.”

Well, that can’t come fast enough. The meth labs of democracy have been tested and found wanting. They had the chance to become functional entities within a federal state like the ones in Canada or Australia or Germany, and instead whored themselves out to the highest bidder.

Keep the states for boundaries and ceremonial purposes, like college gameday. Otherwise, fuck ’em and the electoral college, and have a national election fought somewhere other than Dayton.

I am completely on board with this. Fuck the states. They have way too much importance in our system anyway. And in this day and age, the world is shrinking, as is the number of problems that can be handled at their level. They’re as obsolete as those goddamn horses and bayonets.

2012 is the last hurrah for the Southern Strategy/white resentment as a national electoral strategy.

@Cacti: This is why both Soonergrunt and I think there will be actual violence. Because this is the ballgame, they know it, and when they lose, they’re going to do what white folks always do when their favorite sports team loses.

@Humanities Grad: I don’t know why this isn’t getting through. I’m not talking about Democratic electors voting for the Republican or vice-versa. I’m talking about a Republican state government arranging to send Republican electors even when their state goes to the Democrat. They could in theory make such a gambit stick if they got friendly rulings from friendly judges all the way up–for example, in my scenario, pushing trumped-up charges about voter fraud to say that despite the apparent vote totals, the Republican _actually_ won, and Republican judges ruling their way level after level after level. It would be blatant thievery. It might actually work. They almost tried it in 2000, until the Supreme Court preempted the attempt.

Possible. I don’t know this guy, so don’t know his personal life. It is still odd to build a lie on this foundation and try to use it in some lame “Obama bad, Romney good” parable. And whether or not the story about his sons is true, his undisguised hatred for Obama and irrational defense of Romney is very real.

I knew people who hated the Clinton’s, but not with this intensity. And the insistence on Obama’s inferiority was simply appalling. Not entirely surprising, but still appalling.

They had the chance to become functional entities within a federal state like the ones in Canada or Australia or Germany, and instead whored themselves out to the highest bidder.

Neither Canada nor Australia are good counter examples.

And since I live in California, I would rather roll the dice on the periodic dysfunction that pops up here than be under the yoke of a weak state system and a federal government dominated by the GOP and their Tea Party People masters.

@Villago Delenda Est: Sadly, he’s probably not. My mother would crawl over broken glass to cast her vote for Rmoney, she hates Obama with the fire of a thousand suns even though a Rmoney win would insure within a year that both my brother and his wife would be out of work, and within two years, my stepfather and I and my mother would also be out of work.

I got this in an email, I don’t know who wrote it, but they have a gift:

Dear Red States:

We’re ticked off at your Neanderthal attitudes and politics and we’ve decided we’re leaving: “Legitimate rape.” is almost reason enough!

We in New York intend to form our own country and we’re taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren’t aware that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and the rest of the Northeast.

We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation and especially to the people of the new country of The Enlightened States of America (E.S.A).

To sum up briefly:

You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.

We get stem cell research and the best beaches.

We get Andrew Cuomo and Elizabeth Warren. You get Bobby Jindal and Todd Akin.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand.

We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.

We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss.

We get 85 percent of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs.

You get Alabama.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue. You get to make the red states pay their fair share.
Please be aware that the E.S.A. will be pro choice and anti war and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Afghanistan at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home.

We wish you success in Afghanistan, and possibly Iran as well, but we’re not willing to spend our resources in these sorts of pursuits.

With the Blue States in hand we will have firm control of 80% of the country’s fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95% of America’s quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90% of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the US low sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans and their projected health care costs, 92% of all US mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the U niversity of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals than we lefties.

We’re taking the good weed too. You can have that crap they grow in Mexico.

The decent, upstanding members of the beltway Kool Kids Klub will question the legitimacy of the whole term and state that the ONLY choice is for Obama to move to the right and “compromise” with the GOP.

@digitals3rf: I’m getting a little tired of people telling me they wish I would die. That and the whole Worst Generation BS is getting a bit old, but of course, none of us Boomers ever built, invented, or did anything of importance.

The only reason they think that is disappointment. We’re all really hippies on the inside now, but most of us will go to our graves denying it. Not relevant, y’know? Gotta get out from the suffocating legacy, blah blah blah.

I think the supreme court will order a full recount in all states, but, like, it will apply just this time and no other. The liberal media will say that it sounds fair, so the democrats should just stfu.

It’s happened in elections before, and changed the outcome of vice president in the 1836 election.

It’s never changed the outcome for president, however, but that doesn’t mean it could never happen. And there does not appear to be any constitutional prohibition against faithless electors, and none of the states have laws on their books that would disqualify or vacate a faithless elector’s ballot.

In any case, winning the electoral college without the popular vote would clearly demonstrate the “Kenyan Usurper” does not have the people’s mandate (according to the right wingnuts).

I am starting to think this whole “let the southern states secede” and “Jesusland vs US of Canada” meme is horrible, and weak, and deeply unproductive. I bought into it in 2005, I still feel it sometimes, but as time has gone on, I’m more often starting to feel it is toxic.

It’s a loser thing to do. We win if we keep the USA together. We win if we can show white folks in the south– WHO SHOULD BE OUR ALLIES IN FIGHTING CORPORATE RULE– how they are getting fucked by corporate rule.

Look, who wins when the 99% fight against each other? Thaaaaat’s right: the 1%. These issues of race and geography are a “divide and conquer” strategy. It’s tribal bullshit.

I’m just as frustrated as anyone at the success of the Southern Strategy, and the persistent tendency of voters in “red” states to vote against their own interests. But the more time I spend actually TALKING with people in these states, and visiting them to knock on doors, the less I feel like the adversarial approach makes any sense at all.

I think more hippie liberals need to travel outside the “enlightened” bubble. It’s good for ya.